As part of the work on classification and integration of the material held in the UIA databases, research continues into radical new approaches to the organization of knowledge. For instance, the UIA has long been concerned with the complexity represented by the networks of international organizations generated though research into international organizations and civil society and detailed in the Yearbook of International Organizations.

Documents produced by international organizations contain a great deal of information about the problems they face. Faced with this overload of information, most bodies survive by ignoring all but a small fraction of information available, and focus instead on carving out a small niche and cultivate a network of similarly minded bodies. Their work entails trying to formulate the most powerful strategy possible for action, and undermining the initiatives of those whom they perceive to be causing or sustaining such problems.

Given that no source of information is considered an absolute authority that may not be challenged, and because the Encyclopedia is a participative project, users are encouraged to present counter-claims to views that they consider inappropriately presented. A feedback facility is integrated for that purpose to encourage recognition of the dynamics of the controversey that is often associated with this kind of information.

The profiles (and relationships between them) in the participative encyclopedia are created most usually from publicly available sources of information. Through the dynamics of the participative process, this information is subject to continuous revision, taking into account insights from both emerging coalitions of opinion and from perspectives articulated in public debate.

Typology of 12 complementary strategies essential to sustainable development

A data base is maintained, as part of the development of the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential, on the various concepts of human development (1000 entries) and associated modes or awareness (over 3000) in terms of which individuals and groups engender developmental programmes and images of quality of life. Related studies include the following: